A New Spark

The twelve small wooden shrines now each housed a photographic plate. Lucille closed her eyes and began to chant the incantations the itako had taught them. Her voice, in unison with Isao’s, blended French and ancient Japanese in a strange melody that seemed to echo from another time. With each stanza’s end, a wave of energy rippled through the ritual circle they had drawn.

The ancient words resonated in the silent temple, as if the stones themselves were holding their breath. Isao felt Lucille’s presence beside him — not as a ghost drifting between worlds, but as a force of pure will, determined to shatter her chains.

At that precise moment, the first photograph glowed with a golden light, as if radiance emanated from the glass itself. The second followed almost immediately, then the third. One by one, the images ignited — not with destructive flame, but with a luminance that seemed to capture the very essence of the soul.

The air became electric. Suspended dust particles glittered like miniature stars. A low rumble shook the temple’s foundations. Adrien’s shadow materialized, enormous and distorted, its contours rippling like agitated water.

"I am invincible," thundered a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Isao clenched his jaw, resisting the invisible pressure bearing down on him. Memories that were not his own surged through his mind — Paris aglow with gas lamps, the scent of turpentine and oil paint, Lucille’s face rendered from a thousand angles, obsessively reproduced on canvases that lined a gloomy studio. He saw through Adrien’s eyes, felt his consuming passion, his pathological jealousy.

The lanterns hanging from the ceiling swayed violently. Sinister creaks echoed through the temple’s structure. Lucille’s photographs now seemed animated with a life of their own.

The light from the photographs intensified, forming a perfect circle that began to close in around Adrien’s shadow. A scream of rage tore through the air as the specter twisted, desperately seeking an escape.

"You belong to me, Lucille!" Adrien roared. "You are nothing without my gaze! I am the one who immortalized you, the one who preserved your beauty from the corruption of time!"

Lucille’s eyes opened, shining with determination. For a century and a half, she had been a prisoner of Adrien’s obsession, captured in his canvases, her soul imprisoned in a mirror. She had been his model, his muse, his fixation — never his partner, never his equal.

"You never understood, Adrien," Lucille said, her voice firm and resonant with newfound assurance. "Art is not possession but liberation. Every portrait you painted only imprisoned me further, while you claimed to make me eternal."

The shadow wavered, destabilized by her simple words.

Isao recited the final incantation, the ancient words vibrating with new strength as they left his lips. As he chanted, Adrien’s presence began to condense, becoming nearly tangible at the center of the circle.

Adrien then appeared before them, more real than he had ever been — a man with refined features, elegant yet hollowed by obsession, his eyes burning with ancient rage.

"You don’t understand what I sacrificed for you," he spat at Lucille. "I defied death itself! I perfected techniques no one dared explore! All to preserve you, to protect you!"

The light from the twelve photographs intensified until it became blinding. Adrien struggled, reaching for Lucille with spectral claws. His face, contorted by hatred and jealousy, was that of a man consumed by his own art.

"You need me! Without me, you’re just a forgotten image!" Adrien howled.

"You don’t own me anymore, Adrien," Lucille declared. "I am free! The Lucille from your memory is gone. The woman before you has found her own light."

She turned to Isao, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. In her posture, in her gaze, Isao saw the woman he had come to know these past weeks — strong despite her fragile appearance, determined despite her doubts, and profoundly human. Even though she had miraculously reclaimed her body, she was not truly free until Adrien could no longer reach her across dimensions.

"For the final image," she said, her voice frayed with exhaustion, "we must capture it together."

Adrien lunged toward Isao, realizing that the young photographer posed a greater threat than he had imagined. A spectral hand stretched out as if to strangle him. A chilling cold engulfed him. His vision blurred, and for a terrifying moment, he thought he understood — and even agreed with — Adrien.

"Isao!"

Lucille’s voice pulled him back. Her hand, strangely solid, gripped his with surprising strength.

Together, they faced the looming Adrien. They joined hands over the camera Ume had blessed the night before, during a ritual that had lasted all night. A thirteenth image, the one of final release, was to be captured — not of Lucille, nor of Adrien, but of the rupture of the toxic bond that had linked them for far too long.

Lucille nodded, a fragile smile on her lips. At exactly 8:00 a.m., the last plate was exposed. A blinding flash of white light burst from the camera, flooding the room. A bestial scream echoed through the temple as the painter’s form shattered. His expression shifted from rage to shock, then — strangely — to acceptance. In the final moments of his spectral existence, his features softened, as if peace had finally reached him.

The image captured was not of Adrien himself, but of the absence he had left behind — the void created by Lucille’s disappearance in 1845. This photograph, developed using both occult and ancient techniques, represented the healing of a temporal wound.

The twelve plates vibrated in unison, then exploded simultaneously in a deafening crash. Shards of glass rose into the air, hovering a moment before transforming into a golden dust that slowly vanished.

Silence fell, almost oppressive after so much chaos. Only the song of birds outside reminded them that the world still turned beyond this suspended moment.

Through the temple window, dawn’s light now flooded the room, making the scattered shards of glass sparkle. Sunbeams drew intricate patterns on the walls, as if the universe itself was redrawing the outline of a new story. Each speck of light seemed to contain a forgotten word, an erased memory. Lucille looked up at the ceiling, for the first time aware that she no longer belonged to anyone — not even her past.

Isao gazed at her in awe. He saw her truly for the first time — not as a ghost of the past, but as a woman fully rooted in the present, freed from the invisible chains that still bound her to her former tormentor.

She gently pressed her forehead to his. A shared breath — a breath! — brushed Isao’s cheek. A hesitant beat between two breaths. Their eyes met, where nothing was said, yet everything was understood.

There was in her gesture a newfound assurance, that of a woman who was no longer the reflection of another’s desire. She was no longer the shadow of a fantasy, nor the memory of a vanished painter.

"It’s over," he whispered, still holding Lucille’s hand in his.

She shook her head softly, her short hair dancing around a face transfigured by emotion. A single tear slid down her cheek.

An exhausted but radiant smile lit her face. In her eyes shimmered an unexpected gratitude, toward the one who, despite his own darkness, had unknowingly helped weave the thread of their shared fate.

"No... This is where it begins," she breathed.

Bathed in the light of this new morning, suspended between two worlds now united, a final voice whispered, barely carried by the wind.

"I’m sorry," breathed that voice in a final sigh.

Was it Adrien, finally freed from his own obsession ? Or merely the echo of a past finally fading away ?

Lucille closed her eyes, and in that silence, it was neither a farewell nor a promise — but the dawn of a new existence, a second chance offered beyond time and death.

A new spark glowed in her heart — the spark of a future yet to be written.